


MSV Nomad

by I_Skavinsky_Skavar



Category: Captain America, Mass Effect
Genre: Alternate Universe - Crossover, Alternate Universe - Future, F/M, Gen, Sharon isn't actually here and is also a 300 year old alien
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-08
Updated: 2014-02-08
Packaged: 2018-01-11 15:25:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1174692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/I_Skavinsky_Skavar/pseuds/I_Skavinsky_Skavar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve Rogers and co in the setting of Mass Effect.</p>
            </blockquote>





	MSV Nomad

Years ago, a Captain in Systems Alliance Military Intelligence took a look at the Citadel Council’s Special Tactics and Reconnaissance branch and thought humanity could use something like that.

A smart man, the Captain shortly realized that anything humanity would muster wouldn’t be afforded the same authority that the specters were, nor could they spare as much resources. Nevertheless, rather than change his mind, the Captain decided that humanity’s Specters were just going to have to do thing differently.

It was around the time that Flight Lieutenant Sam Wilson had found himself in the unenviable situation of crashing on a though-to-be uninhabited moon orbiting a remote, barren planet. In dark valleys between mountains with mineral deposits that played havoc with orbital sensors, a multi-species slaving operation had created a base.

Sam had spent a couple of weeks of survival and evasion, trying to get his rations to last, trying to fix his radio in order to contact command, planning a desperate one-man incursion into the slavers compound, before he spotted the drop shuttle in moments before sleep.

He searched all night, or for what was the slavers’ frequent stretch of inactivity period, rather positive it was a hallucination but wanting to be absolutely sure, and his time was about to run out, he found his quarry.

He’d known Lieutenant Commander Steve Rogers by reputation before then. Like Sam, he’d been an N7 graduate at ICT, and he’d served with distinction in the Skyllian Blitz. But the last that he or anyone else had heard about him, it was that a routine response to a distress call on one colony world or another had gone south.

That was years ago, and the war hero had fallen out of sight ever since, some speculating that he’d been injured and put out to pasture. Yet, there he was, on a thought-to-be-uninhabited moon orbiting a remote, barren planet in the Artemis Tau cluster, on a mission.

They left the moon another week later, while an Alliance relief force took control. After a brief period of R&R on the carrier, the Lieutenant Commander bade Sam farewell, and promised to buy the drinks when next they’d run into each other, before he boarded a Vancouver-bound Frigate.

Drinks came a little over two months later, at the officers club on Pinnacle station. He’d been tapped by SAMI, and had asked Sam to come along for the meeting.

Captain Fury’s proposal was simple. They’d, but no longer serve in any active military unit, at least for the foreseeable future. They’d receive an operations grant and use it to purchase a starship, fit it for mission requirements, assemble a crew and venture out into the galaxy.

They were to pose as smugglers, bounty hunters, mercenaries, anything so long as they wouldn’t be identified as Alliance operatives. They were to cultivate contacts and the means to be self-sufficient, as barring extreme circumstances; they would receive no further backing.

But they’d be autonomous, receiving orders and intelligence through their handlers, but free to pursue them however they saw fit.

So they said yes, and went to work.

The starship came in the form of a Turian corvette, decommissioned and put up for auction. The outdated drive core was replaced with one salvaged from the wreckage of a frigate. Improved plating and armaments were later added when they could be acquired one way or the other.

And with a crew of N4 and N5 soldiers that Sam and Steve knew personally, they set off aboard the good ship _Nomad_.

*** * ***

The Harsa relay loomed, the revolutions of the rings surrounding its eezo core just becoming visible. Sam relaxed at the helm, but gave the sensors a proper look, not wanting any surprises when they were in the home stretch.

He heard footsteps approaching, and the smell of hot coffee. He glanced only briefly as Steve passed him one of two mugs.

 “How’s the guest of honor?” Sam asked.

“Out like a light.” Said Steve as he took his place at the often empty co-pilot’s station, “Should stay that way until he’s off our hands.”

“You talk to Fury yet?” asked Sam before taking a careful sip.

“As a matter of fact, I did. They want our target handed off to the Turians.”

“You’re kidding me.”

“The brass don’t want any humans linked with the subject or his abduction. So we see to it that Turians end up with him, the Turians hand him over to the Alliance when they’re done, per intelligence-cooperation agreements.”

“Turians might wipe their ass on the agreement.”

“The brass want to find out if the Turians can be counted on not to. The brass want the subject out of the picture, so Turians keeping him won’t be such a loss.”

“Alright, but I don’t think there’s much a chance of us collecting the bounty, is there?”

“We could take him to Oban. We could smuggle the target somewhere, let him loose but watch him closely so he’s free to move around but we can stop him getting away if he tries. Oban finds a Turian contractor with just enough brains to bring him in, but not enough to look too close. Oban gets ten-percent of the bounty as a finder’s fee, which he splits with us.”

“Why not just hand him off to Duggan?”

“Duggan us having some trouble with C-Sec, right now.”

“And when you say split…”

“Fifty-fifty, otherwise Oban won’t go for it. Five percent of the total. Might be lower.”

Sam groaned, and took another sip.

“Five or four percent should cover expenses for now.”

“Not really. Maybe we can get it to cover essentials, but five or four percent is too little for the effort.”

“I know.”

“And a full bounty would have set us for the nest six or eight missions.”

“I know. But we’ll make it work, right?”

Sam frowned.

“Drive core needs better maintenance than the crew can provide. It’s not going to be easy.”

“Feda could help. There has to be a talented Quarian machinist on their pilgrimage who can ride with us for a little while. Failing that, I’ll sell my body on the alleyways of Omega.”

Sam snorted and took one more sip of coffee.

“You’re not that pretty, son.” Said Sam, “Coffee tastes great, at least.”

“The machine was making a sound, though. Was gonna have it fixed, or replaced.”

“Nah, leave it. Money’s tight, you know.”

Steve set his mug down to the side, as full of black liquid as it had been before he walked in.

“I… Need to ask you something. It’s about Shara.”

Sam took a moment to exhale, scanned the sensors, and looked across Nomad’s canopy at the relay growing larger. In truth, he took several moments, and Steve spoke again.

“Sam?”

“Look, it isn’t that I don’t like Shara, or that she’s an alien, but she’s _an alien_.”

Part of their operations was the network of alien assets across the galaxy that they’d call upon for certain jobs. Oban, a Volus businessman, was one, while Fada, a Quarian engineer who’d worked on retrofitting Nomad while she was on her pilgrimage, and Duggan, a Krogan bounty hunter, was another.

They’d called upon them for services, invited them onto their ship for days on end, and called them friends, but the crew took care that they’d never find out who they really were and what they really did.

They weren’t the only ones, and Shara T’Rencor could have been another, had she not been aware of the Nomad’s crew true nature before ever setting foot on the ship.

“She’s an Asari,” Sam continued, “As in the ones that founded the Council, as in the last people the Alliance would want one of riding around with their covert ops teams. An Asari _commando_ , to boot.”

“Ex-commando.”

“So she claims.”

“And I’ve actually considered all the above.”

“I know you did. Nevertheless, she’s still here.”

“Well, I couldn’t have just left her on that station, Sam. Could you?”

Sam turned to frown at Steve.

“I’m not going to answer that, since my answer could void my indignation, but the bottom line is that this is a mess and it’s up to you to find your way out of it. Do you have any idea on how you’re going to do that?”

“I’m working on it.”

“Good, because I’ve got nothing. Any other questions you want to ask?”

“Well… I was going to ask you… Do you think Shara would enjoy Italian?”

“…Italian?”

“Yeah, like pasta?”

“Really, Steve?”

“Yeah.”

“Is this at least part of your plan?”

“Sure.”

“Is it the plan to get rid of her without compromising the mission or is it a plan to get her to be your girlfriend?”

“Well… I don’t think I’m committing to a goal like that, but… Well.”

Sam exhaled tiredly, pinched the bridge of his nose, and turned his attention back to the instruments.

“Thai.”

“What?”

“Asari really go for Thai.”

“Thanks.”

“And Steve?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m serious. Don’t do anything to the coffee machine.”


End file.
